


From None To Five

by CeezoCico



Series: Ninjago- Kids In The Dark [1]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, And a ‘Super Ultra Secret Mega Hangout Ninja Base’, High School, High School AU, I tried to spread it but it's hard, Kai makes jokes about them being a cult, Kai owns only red shoes, Kai's my favourite and it might be easy to tell in this, Lloyd gets indoctirnated, Lloyd has no friends, Lloyd needs a hug, That's An Important One, They all have cool bean bags, Wu gets mentioned but I wasn't bothered to tag him as a character, also I stan Lloyd x happiness, also Kai yells offscreen and everyone makes fun of him for it, alternative universe, and then all of sudden he has five and he doesn't know what do, but the writer is Irish so they don't know how high school works, idk what I'm tagging anymore but you have to deal, the Smith siblings are iconic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeezoCico/pseuds/CeezoCico
Summary: Lloyd Garmadon wouldn't exactly say his life was perfect. “Fitting in” and him never got along well for one; now it was his first day of high school and he knew that wouldn't go well...But maybe some new friends could change that.(Aka a high school AU that's better than this summary makes it sound I promise)





	From None To Five

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first in story in my Kids In The Dark AU and idk when I'll post again 'cause I'm the opposite of consistent and I apologise in advance.
> 
> Also Idk how High school works so sorry 'bout that.
> 
> Also also if you wanna ask me stuff about this au, shoot me an ask on my ninjago side blog on tumblr @ceezoninja 'cause this au has a lot of stuff in it that I'll have to wait awhile to actually share in a story.
> 
> Also also also, this is unbetaed 'cause I'm too lazy to find someone.

“Let’s hope TV lied about how bad this is going to be…” Lloyd thought as he stepped onto the school bus, taking the first empty set of seats he saw. Today was it, his first day of high school. What he was told were either the worst, best or most boring years of his life. Of course, Lloyd knew that them being the best was a complete lie, or at least for him, but he tried to keep his hopes up.

 

Lloyd kept his focus on the view, glancing towards the entrance of the bus whenever he felt it stop. The ride went by fast, too fast, and Lloyd was forcing himself to stand and walk out of the bus much sooner than he would have liked. He didn’t stop walking until he was inside the building. The halls were already packed, cliques forming, “BFFs” being made and a familiar feeling came over Lloyd. The feeling he had come to describe as the “only alien in a room of humans” feeling, weird but it worked.

 

“Fitting in” and Lloyd never got along well. He didn’t do well enough in school to be a nerd or geek, did too well and failed at talking way too much to be popular. Preps though he didn’t try enough but the angsty rebel kids thought he tried too hard and respected authority too much. That was the cycle of _lucky Lloyd Garmadon’s_ social life and he had come to accept that. Everyone fit into a box, but he just wasn’t as lucky. His uncle would probably stroke his beard at that and start some stupid spiel about how being unique is always better than being normal, but Wu’s advice was always just nonsense.

 

 

The first several classes, and the annoying bonding exercises they were forced to do, sped by. Lloyd had kept his head down for the most part, only talking when necessary. He was glad lunch had come, it was only the first day and he was already not remembering anything his teachers had said. After a quick stop at his locker, he headed towards the canteen.

 

Grabbing a lunch tray, he stood in the painstakingly slow line. As he waited, he scanned the hall for an empty bench. Spotting one in the corner, he let out a relived sigh as he picked up his “ _food_ ” and started making his way to it.

 

Sitting down, Lloyd balanced his bag on his knees and started to pick at his food, occasionally glancing towards the clock at the top of the large hall. Students were still milling through the surprisingly small entrance, the majority being in groups or pairs. One particular group made up of two seniors, two juniors and sophomore from what Lloyd guessed, were making their way towards the back of the hall where Lloyd’s bench was.

 

A moment passed before Lloyd realised what happening and the panic started setting in. He picked this spot specifically so he wouldn’t have to sit with anyone but _good ol’ Garmadon luck_ decided to mess with him for the millionth time. Lloyd had only hoped, as the group sat down at the other end of the bench, that they didn’t notice his staring, or _“observing”_ as his uncle had called it.

 

“Hey! You okay? You’ve kind of been staring at us?” One of the juniors, a boy with spiked brown hair and tanned skin, asked. “Kai!” The girl next to him, the sophomore with matching tanned skin, a mole on her right cheek and black hair tied into a messy ponytail, exclaimed, punching the boy, apparently named Kai, in the shoulder afterwards.

 

“What! I’m just asking?” Kai replied, rubbing his shoulder. Well, there went the whole going unnoticed plan.

 

“Oh, um, I’m fine I was just… uh… I was… I just have this thing…” Lloyd stumbled over his words, unable to form a basic sentence. He was _really_ failing at this.

 

“You’re a freshman, aren’t you?” One of the seniors, a boy with a broad build, chocolate skin and black hair tied into a man bun, asked.

 

“Um, yeah? I’m Lloyd.” Lloyd replied, one hand going to fidget with the strap of his bag.

 

“Figured. Name’s Cole by the way! And that’s Zane,” Cole replied, pointing to the other senior on his right with olive skin and blond, almost white, hair shaved at the sides. He also seemed to have a prosthetic left arm, but Lloyd tried not to pay it too much attention. Zane gave a small wave and a just as small but genuine smile towards Lloyd.

 

“That’s Jay,” Cole continued, now motioning to the other junior on his left with pale freckled skin and messy brownish-auburn hair that made him look like he just rolled out of bed. Jay gave Lloyd an energetic wave and a matching energy-filled “Hi!”

 

“And that’s Kai and Nya, the Smith siblings.” Cole finished, gesturing to the pair across from him, Lloyd getting a wave and a “’Sup.” In response. “If any teachers ask you if anyone helped you get settled in tell them it was us. It’ll be nice to start the year with the teachers liking us, though I don’t know if that’s possible for _some of us_.” Cole said, his eyes moving towards Kai.

 

“Hey! It was one time!” Kai exclaimed back, glaring at Cole. “Actually, you yelled at teachers  _three_ times.” Zane corrected, Kai’s glare switching to him. Jay and Nya burst into laughter, Cole and Zane joined in soon and even Kai laughed along once his initial anger calmed. Lloyd started laughing too, something that surprised him, but he didn’t want to stop, so he kept going until everyone else did.

 

“Anyway! Lloyd! This is very important! Incredibly important! Stupendously impo-“ Jay exclaimed before being cut off by Cole, “ _Jay_ , I think he gets the point.” Jay let out an awkward laugh and continued, “So, Lloyd, have you ever heard of The Fold?” Jay asked, his hands flapping excitedly.

 

“Yeah? They’re one of my favourite bands.” Lloyd answered, unsure about what made that “incredibly important”.

 

“Right answer.” Kai said, he glanced at the rest of the group, getting a nod from each before asking, “So, you free after school?”

 

Lloyd tried to hold back the gigantic smile that started to spread across his face, but it was no use. He did what seemed to be impossible for all his life, _have friends!_ He mentally went over what had to do that day and _for once_ luck was on his side because today he didn’t even have to do anything for his uncle.

 

“Yeah! I’m actually free all day!” Lloyd answered, his joy clear as day in his voice no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

 

“Nice! Meet us at the gate after school and we’ll take you to our… What’d you call it Jay?” Kai said, turning his head towards Jay.

 

“Umm…” Jay mumbled in thought, placing his hands on the sides of chin. Zane piped in from besides Cole, “I believe it to be something along the lines of ‘Super Ultra Secret Mega Hangout Ninja Base’.” Zane’s voice wasn’t nearly as excited as Lloyd assumed Jay had sounded when he first said it but there was still a sense of fondness in his words.

 

“ _Ninja base?_ ” Lloyd jokingly asked, laughing.

 

“I know right? I always saw myself as more a samurai.” Nya said with a laugh of her own. Kai wrapped an arm around Nya’s shoulder and pulled her up against him, he playfully ruffled her hair as he said, “Yeah, but you’re one of us sis so you’re a ninja now no matter what.” Nya shoved him off, her laughter growing.

 

Nya’s laughter was suddenly cut off by the sound of the school bell, signally that it was the time for students to leave for class. Kai immediately started booing in the direction of the nearest speaker until Nya punched him in the shoulder and told him to stop.

 

“Ugh…” Kai groaned, running his hands down his before cracking his knuckles, “Time to go back to nightmares…”

 

Jay laughed, “Hey, it’s not that bad.” Kai stared at him with half lidded eyes. “Okay, it’s that bad.

 

Everyone begrudgingly, except Zane who seemed indifferent to the situation, stood up and put their trays away. Lloyd pulled out his schedule, looking at it once before realising he had no idea where he was going.

 

“Hey, um, do you guys know where room…” Lloyd paused, double checking his schedule before continuing, “Room B7 is?”

 

“Oh, I’m passing that on my way, I’ll show you.” Nya said, offering a smile.

 

“Room B7? Isn’t that the room where Dareth was trying to show all the students how _‘cool’_ he was so tried to do a backflip and broke a table instead?” Cole said with a laugh.

 

“Oh yeah! A bunch of teachers ran in ‘cause it was so loud and they were panicking and he just _stood up!_ How?!?” Jay exclaimed.

 

“Dareth? Who’s he?” Lloyd asked.

 

“Dareth’s a guy who substitutes here a lot. Thinks he’s _king of the world_ or something.” Nya said with a laugh.

 

Jay nodded his head along with Nya’s words before glancing at the clock, “SHOOT! Class starts in a minute and mine’s on the other side of the school! Gotta go! Bye!” Jay practically sprinted through the hall, only slowing down when he saw a teacher turn the corner.

 

“Jay is right, we should start going to class if we do not want to late.” Zane said in his almost robotic voice.

 

“Yeah, yeah. We hear ya. See you guys later!” Kai called over his shoulder before taking off in the same direction as Jay, though much slower.

 

“By friends, I will see you later as well.” Zane said before heading to his own class.

 

“See you guys at the gate.” Cole said before leaving too, just leaving Nya and Lloyd.

 

Nya checked the time on her phone before putting it in her pocket. “We better go, on the first day you want teachers to think you’re a good student so that when you’re not, they just think you’re having a bad day. _Quite handy_ if I do say so myself.” Nya said, starting to walk towards her class with Lloyd trailing closely behind her.

 

Once the pair reached room B7, Lloyd said goodbye to Nya before walking into the classroom and sitting down, immediately starting to wish the class was over before it even began.

 

 

After what seemed like an _eternity_ , school was over. Lloyd practically jumped out of his chair when he heard the bell ring but managed to stay still until the teacher told them they could leave. Once out of the classroom, he had to physically stop himself from sprinting to his locker, though he couldn’t help but powerwalk. He quickly put away the books he didn’t need and grabbed the ones he did before closing his locking and starting to make his way towards the gate.

 

When Lloyd arrived, he spotted Zane and Nya and tried to casually walk over to them, though _being casual was never his forte._ “Uh, hi guys… Where are the rest of them?” Lloyd asked awkwardly.

 

“Oh, hi Lloyd. The others will probably be out soon. Though I did pass the classroom Kai was in and heard a lot of yelling, so we might have to wait awhile for him.” Nya said, her phone in her hand as she scrolled through what Lloyd assumed was some social media.

 

“When I was leaving, I saw Jay running past me saying something about forgetting his phone.” Zane informed, standing still. His eyes focused on the robin that was resting in the tree next to the gate.

 

“Hey!” Jay suddenly appeared behind Lloyd, making him jump. “I thought you forgot your phone?” Nya said. Jay laughed nervously, “I, uh, actually had it the whole time…” Nya and Zane started laughing, Nya’s much louder while Zane’s was barely more than mere chuckles, and after a moment Lloyd joined in too.

 

“Listen guys! Did you hear? Kai yelled at Ms. Rose! Again!” Jay exclaimed, flapping his hands.

 

“What’d she say _this time_?” Nya asked, placing her phone in her pocket.

 

“Oh! We were analysing this short story about a kid whose parents went missing when they were super young! And then the kid grows up and his parents are still missing so he goes on this journey to find them! But Ms. Rose was going on about how it’s actually about a boy whose parents abandoned him and how they didn’t actually care about him. Kai started arguing with her and saying that the kid was told his parents were missing and there’s no proof they abandoned him but Ms. Rose was saying that they were probably just lying to the-“ Jay suddenly stopped and slapped a hand over his mouth. Lloyd was confused until his eyes slid over to Nya and specifically her _furious_ face.

 

“Why that little!” Nya exclaimed, pure _fury_ seeping into her words, looking ready to run into the school and yell, _or fight_ Lloyd wasn’t sure, at the teacher herself.

 

Zane walked next to Nya and placed a hand on Nya’s shoulder in a calming gesture. “Take a deep breath, Nya. That woman isn’t worth your time.” Nya followed his instructions and composed herself.

 

“And anyways, sis! I yelled at her for both of us. It was so loud _every teacher in the entire hallway_ came to find out what was happening!” Kai exclaimed with a proud grin on his face as he threw an arm over his sister’s shoulder.

 

“Nice! How much detention did you get for that stunt?” Cole said, laughing, as he walked up to the group.

 

Kai turned his head towards him, his grin growing even larger. “ _Actually_ , I didn’t get any.”

 

 _“How?”_ Lloyd asked, finally feeling like he was able to say something.

 

“Simple, Mr. Hoffman…” Kai started but was interrupted by Jay exclaiming, “The only teacher who _actually likes him!_ ” Kai shot Jay a glare before continuing, “ _Mr Hoffman_ was the first one to come in and since he knows how horrible Ms. Rose is, he mentioned how many times she gets into fights with students and convinced her to just say that the video she was playing started going haywire and I stayed to help.”

 

“I’ll make sure to stay on his good side.” Lloyd said with a laugh.

 

“Friends,” Zane called, “We should start leaving soon.”

 

The rest of the group nodded in response, except for Lloyd who asked, “So, _where are we actually going?”_

 

“Zane’s dad’s a pretty important guy at Borg Industries so Zane convinced him to let us use an unused storage room to hangout and stuff.” Cole explained.

 

“Oh, um, cool!” Lloyd responded.

 

“Anyways!” Jay exclaimed, enunciating every syllable, “Let’s go!” Jay rushed off in the direction of Borg Tower only stopping and turning around when he realised no one was following him. “Come on! Guys! Hurry up!” The rest of the group all laughed before following Jay at a much more relaxed pace.

 

 

Soon, Lloyd found himself at THE Borg Towers, the _tallest_ building in all of Ninjago. He had only been here once before, when his middle school went on a tour. He didn’t remember much though, he had never been one for school trips, made the lack of friends very _apparent_.

 

“Woah, your dad works _here_?” Lloyd asked in disbelief.

 

“Yes, he is one of Borg’s top inventors.” Zane informs, a sense of pride in his words.

 

“We better get a move on so we have enough time to _indoctrinate_ Lloyd properly.” Cole said casually.

 

“Cole, why did you say indoctrinate? It makes us sound like a cult or something!” Jay said, waving his hands around to express his shock.

 

“I mean, we are _kind of_ like a cult.” Kai said.

 

“We are **not** like a cult!” Jay exclaimed, waving his hands around even more.

 

 _“You sure about that?”_ Kai responded with a playful smirk. Nya, who stood next to him, let out a snort at how riled up Jay was.

 

“Cults are **evil**! We’re not **evil**!” Jay exclaimed once again.

 

“So you’re saying that _besides that,_ we are like a cult?” Kai replied, a smug look on his face.

 

“Alright, guys. Let’s go inside or we’ll be stuck out here for _who knows how long_.” Nya said, trying to contain her laughter.

 

 

The group walked inside, Zane leading the way. They passed the reception desk, the receptionist giving them a polite smile, and went through a door labelled **STORAGE**. After taking several turns through hallways covered in doors, Zane stopped at one in particular. “Friends, we have arrived.” Zane announced, pushing open the door and stepping inside. The rest followed, with Lloyd entering last. Once he could properly see the room, Lloyd stopped and _just stared_ in awe. Sure, he wasn’t expecting it to be awful, but he wasn’t expecting what he saw.

 

The walls were lined with posters, except for one that was covered in chalk doodles, and a fancy looking speaker was placed in the corner. There was a flat screen TV on stand against the same wall as the speaker and there were several games consoles, _and a mess of wires_ , placed around it. In the centre of the room there was a circular table and five bean bags were placed around it. A closet was up against the opposite corner to the speaker.

 

“Woah…” Lloyd muttered in shock. “Pretty cool, _right?”_ Cole said next to him. Lloyd blushed as he realised that he had just been standing there for the last minute. “Uh, yeah, it _really_ is.” Lloyd replied.

 

“Zane gets hooked up with a lot of Borg’s latest tech, so we have some _nice_ stuff.” Nya said, motioning to TV and speaker.

 

“Speaking of nice stuff!” Kai, who had walked away and was now opening the closet, called, “Lloyd! What bean bag do you want?” Kai asked, pulling out a pair of bean bags from the closet. One was a purple with light blue stripes and the other was green with small golden stars.

 

“The green one.” Lloyd said immediately. His favourite colour was green, and gold always reminded him of his uncle.

 

“ _Thought so_. Matches your shoes.” Kai pointed out, motioning to Lloyd’s shoes, green converse with the whites painted over with golden paint. Lloyd blushed at the memory of his six year old self painting his green runners with golden paint after he found out it was his uncle’s favourite colour, it had just become a habit after that.

 

“I’m not making fun of them by the way. I’d be a pretty big hypocrite since _every_ pair of shoes I own are red.” Kai said, putting the purple bean bag back and throwing the green bean bag amongst the rest of the floor.

 

“I’m pretty sure you only mentioned his shoes, so you could bring up your red shoes. He’s _literally_ wearing a green hoodie.” Cole jokingly accused.

 

Kai threw his hands up in defeat, “Guess I’m guilty.” He admitted, walking over to a red and orange bean bag and letting himself fall into it.

 

The rest of the group laughed and went to sit down in a bean bag. Zane’s was white with light blue snowflakes, Cole’s was black with orange polka dots, Jay’s was blue with a white symbol that Lloyd guessed was an octopus and Nya’s was the most complicated, it was an ocean blue colour with several large golden stripes and smaller red stripes on top of the golden ones.

 

“You guys _really_ know how to decorate.” Lloyd said, still amazed by the room.

 

“It has come a long way since it was just Cole and me decorating,” Zane said, “Each member of this group has come to add their own touch.” He finished, raising his hand to motion towards the entire room.

 

“Yeah, _man_ , we didn’t even have the chalk wall before Jay and Kai came along… _Woah_ , time sure flies.” Cole said, leaning back in thought.

 

“The chalk wall?” Lloyd asked. He knew it probably meant the wall covered in chalk doodles, but he wanted to keep the conversation going.

 

“Oh! That was my idea! I thought it would be cool if we had an entire wall that we could just cover in drawings and quotes and stuff! So that’s why we have the chalk wall.” Jay explained, pointing towards the chalk wall.

 

“Friends, are we going to add Lloyd’s handprint to the chalk wall?” Zane inquired.

 

“Yeah! Come on Lloyd!” Jay exclaimed, springing out of his bean bag and running over to the chalk wall, despite the room being small enough for it not to make a difference.

 

“Wait, _what_ am I doing?” Lloyd asked, very confused. He cautiously got up and started to slowly walk over to the wall.

 

“We have this tradition that every member of the group covers their hand in chalk and puts it on the wall to leave a handprint.” Nya explained. She, and the rest of the group who weren’t already there, walked over to the wall behind Lloyd.

 

“Um, okay..?” Lloyd replied, maybe _this_ is why Kai said they were like a cult.

 

Once Lloyd reached the chalk wall, Jay shoved several chalk colours in his face. “So, which colour? We’ve got blue, red, another blue, green, orange, white… Ooo! I think I have purple somewhere!” He exclaimed, running to the closet to start searching.

 

“Oh, you don’t need to do that. I just want the green one.” Lloyd said.

 

“Yeah, _Jay_ , I think we all knew he’d want the green one.” Kai said, folding his arms as he grinned at Jay with half-lidded eyes.

 

“Yeah, _I knew that_ …” Jay said sheepishly, walking back over and handing Lloyd the green chalk.

 

Lloyd covered his hand in chalk and looked back up at the group, this was one _crazy_ day. He went from having no friends and having no hopes at ever having friends to making five in one day. He smiled at them and they all returned the smile. He closed his eyes and took a calming breath, opening them before pushing his hand against the wall next to them rest of the handprints.

 

The group burst into cheers as Lloyd pulled his hand back and smiled at the green handprint he left on the wall, he was a part of this group...

_And he couldn’t be happier._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Remember that if you want to ask me about my au, send me an ask on tumblr @ceezoninja  
> I'll try to respond as soooooon as possible!


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